Neonatal hyperbilirubinemia bilirubin encephalopathy: investigations into the diagnosis, epidemiology, pathogenesis, management and treatment of the jaundiced newborn

• Main Author: Maisels, Michael Jeffrey
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: jaundice; newborn infant; pathogenesis; epidemiology; diagnosis; treatment
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10539/6971

Jaundice is probably the most common newborn infant problem dealt with on a daily basis by the family practitioner and paediatrician. Jaundice occurs when the liver cannot clear a sufficient amount of bilirubin from the plasma. When the problem is excessive bilirubin formation or limited uptake or conjugation, unconjugated (i.e., indirect reacting) bilirubin appears in the blood and indirect hyperbilirubinemia is the predominant form of jaundice found in the newborn infant. In the vast majority of newborns, hyperbilirubinemia is transient and benign but, in rare cases, the serum bilirubin rises to a level that is toxic to the central nervous system. Understanding the pathogenesis and epidemiology of neonatal hyperbilirubinemia; recognizing, the problems involved in appropriate surveillance and monitoring of the jaundiced infant and the factors contributing to bilirubin encephalopathy; and implementing treatment of the jaundiced neonate in a timely fashion, are issues that have engaged clinicians and researchers for some 6 decades. This work will summarize my contributions to the field of neonatal hyperbilirubinemia and it includes papers published between 1971 and 2007. The description of this work will not follow its chronological sequence, but will be divided into the categories of diagnosis, epidemiology, pathogenesis, management, treatment, and bilirubin encephalopathy.